Nyphomaniac now looks certain to be Lars Von Trier’s next feature project, with production slated to begin in the summer of 2012.

Von Trier is currently researching the project, which will follow “the erotic life of a woman from the age of zero to the age of 50.”

The Danish director’s business partner and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen (and co-founder of Zentropa) has confirmed that the film will shoot in the English language. “We hope to start shooting next summer,” he said. “This is following the normal schedule of Lars - a film every second year.”

The film’s subject matter (in particular, its treatment of youthful sexuality and graphic depiction of intercourse) could cause problems with censors. However, the Danish auteur is reportedly planning two versions - one a hardcore cut likely to feature scenes of penetration and a softer version that can be shown in more mainstream cinemas. Despite the likely graphic sexual content, the project is understood to be primarily dialogue-driven.

The film’s storyline will unfold in eight chapters. These have such titles as “The Western and Eastern Church” and “The Little Organ School.”

“He (Von Trier) is really keen on doing this thing. I think that this will be a very amusing film also, very erotic but very funny also,” Peter Aalbæk Jensen commented. “I guess we have something which could generate some press attention. How pornographic it will be, that we have to see in terms of what financing dictates.”

Like most of von Trier’s recent films, Nymphomaniac is set to shoot outside Denmark.

“That’s the burden of coming from a shitty little country,” Peter Aalbæk Jensen joked. “We have to put the financing together in bits and pieces and shoot where people are generous enough to support Lars. We always have been shooting in Sweden or in Germany and have had some extremely valuable backing from (regional funds) Film I Vast and North-Rhine Westphalia. We will either shoot or do post-production in one of these regions.”

At first everyone got excited thinking it was going to be the other star of Melancholia, Kirsten Dunst, who was going to star in this tantalizingly-titled film. But now according to Variety, Charlotte Gainsbourg is "in talks" to star in Lars von Trier's new film, The Nymphomaniac, an "explicit exploration of a woman's erotic life." If you thought her "explicit exploration" in Antichrist was enough already (that was her, too), then just wait until you hear what he's cooking up with this. The actor and filmmaker worked together on Antichrist and Melancholia, and will continue that partnership, with shooting slated for next summer/fall.When Gainsbourg starred in Antichrist for Lars von Trier, she won numerous awards including Best Actress at Cannes that year, though considering he's now persona non grata that won't be happening again. Repped by TrustNordisk and produced by Zentropa, The Nymphomaniac already has enough pre-sales in countries like the UK, Poland, Russia and most of Europe, that it'll get made without much of a hassle, and von Trier can continue making the kind of films he wants with the actresses he likes. Though this one is a bit different.

Nymphomaniac is an ambitious project for von Trier as he has said it will "show the sexual evolution of a woman from birth to age 50." The film will be divided into eight chapters and be released in two different versions - a softcore cut for mainstream distribution, and a hardcore one. "As a cultural radical I can’t make a film about the sexual evolution of a woman from zero to 50 without showing penetration. I know it’s something very European," von Trier told EW. "It principally is a film with a lot of sex in it and also a lot of philosophy." And here we thought Shame was pushing it with an NC-17. Considering we know Gainsbourg isn't afraid to bare all in a sexual way, e.g. Antichrist, and actually act at the same time, she's a good fit here.

Obviously what you are doing right now is called (in my upcoming book of psychology at least) validation. I think it's a normal thing to do. People will reply, say anything, and then you're gonna do what you were subconsciently thinking of doing all along.

NYMPHOMANIAC is the light and poetic story of a woman’s erotic journey from birth to the age of 50 as told by the main character, the self-diagnosed nymphomaniac, Joe.On a cold winter’s evening Seligman, an old bachelor, finds Joe semi unconscious and beaten up in an alleyway. After bringing her to his flat he sees to her wounds while trying to understand how things could have gone so wrong for her. He listens intently as she over the next 8 chapters recounts the lushly branched-out and multi faceted story of her life, rich in associations and interjecting incidents.

It also suggests an emptiness or void at the centre of such an existence.

It could also be taken as the mysterious core that a woman possesses in her sexuality. In other words the inexpressible and inaccessible nature that man assigns to women. The closed brackets exclude the reader (paralleled in the film by the male listener, whom the synopsis wants us to identify as the "reader" of the woman's life which she recounts in chapters -- a common Von Trier trope) from cohesion but it also grants a sanctuary within the greater context of the word, a safe house, a complete and open world inside a defined one.

^So what all this basically means is that Von Trier hired a decent graphic designer?

The movie itself sounds kind of lame to me at this stage. I can't imagine this covering any material that hasn't been covered in, say, Breaking The Waves in a (conceptually) more interesting manner.The whole hardcore-/softcore-cut nonsense only adds to my feeling that this could very well become a high-budget equivalent of something Jess Franco would make in one of his less imaginative periods.

^So what all this basically means is that Von Trier hired a decent graphic designer?

Who cares who thought it up? And, no, what it means is that like all his projects, this one is surrounded by an aura of intent and meaning, inviting reflection.

At this stage we know nothing about this except what we can project onto the small tidbits we have ("the art of Pubrick"), and it's a way more interesting exercise try to think interestingly about it, than not to. So when you say you

Just trying to prepare myself for potential disappointment. If it turns out to be a masterpiece, great! For all of us.

Von Trier is a skillful and intelligent filmmaker, and in my opninion still "one of the good guys". But he also has an ego that sometimes seems to get the best of him. All we know is that he has yet again found a concept with some nice shock-value and that he'll try his best to justify that shock-value with meaningful subtext and masterful imagery. I hope he succeeds in that. But I'm not going to assume so, based on a piece of typography.